The Brhad-Devata Attributed to Saunaka A
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I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/brhaddevataattri01saunuoft THE HARVARD ORIENTAL SERIES HARVARD ORIENTAL SERIES EDITED WITH THE COOPERATION OF VARIOUS SCHOLARS BY CHARLES ROCKWELL LANMAN PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOLUME V CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS PUBLISHED BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1904 ,S-2» \d THE BRHAD-DEVATA ATTRIBUTED TO SAUNAKA A SUMMARY OF THE DEITIES AND MYTHS OF THE RIG-VEDA CRITICALLY EDITED IN THE ORIGINAL SANSKRIT WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND SEVEN APPENDICES, AND TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH CRITICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES BY ARTHUR ANTHONY MACDONELL BODEN PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AND FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGK PART I INTRODUCTION AND TEXT AND APPENDICES CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS PUBLISHED BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1904 Cakbrioge, Mass., U.S.A. Publication Agent of Hai-vard University, Boston, New York, Chicago, San Fbancisco Ginn and Company. London : Ginh and Company 9 St. Martin's Street, Leicester Square. Leipzig : Otto Haerassowitz Querstrasse, 14. %* A copy of this volume, postage paid, may be obtained directly anywhere within the limits of the Universal Postal Union, by sending a Postal Order for the price as given below, to The Publication Agent of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States qf America, The price of this volume is one dollar and fifty cents ($1.50). According to the con- version-tables used in the United States money-order system as the basis of international money-orders, one dollar and fifty cents ($1.50) = 6 shillings and 2 pence = 6 marks and 25 pfennigs = 7 francs or lire and 70 centimes = 5 kroner and 55 ore = 3 florins and 65 cents Netherlandish. PRINTED FROM TYPE AT THE UNIVERSITY PEESS, OXFORB, ENGLAND BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY First edition, 1904, One Tlwwsand Copies TO PROFESSOR ERNST LEUMANN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBURG IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF HIS MANY FRIENDLY SERVICES TO ME IN CONNEXION WITH MY SANSKRIT STUDIES I DEDICATE THIS WORK CONTENTS PAOES Introduction ix-xxxv Sanskbit Text of the Brhaddevata .... 1-103 Adhyaya i. Introduction 1-11 ii. 1-125, Introduction ; 126-158, Deities of RV. i, 1-13 12-24 iii. Deities of EV. i. 13-126 .... 25-37 iv. Deities of RV. i. 126-iv. 32 . 38-49 V. Deities of RV. iv. 33-vii. 49 . 50-64 vi. Deities of RV. vii. 50-x. 17 65-78 vii. Deities of RV. X. 17-98 .... 79-91 x. viii. 1-98, Deities of RV. 98-191 ; 99-140, Conclusion 92-103 Appendix i. Index of Vedic Pratikas cited in the Brhaddevata 105-114 ii. Index of Authorities cited in the Brhaddevata 115 iii. Index of Deities of RV. according to the Brhaddevata 116-131 iv. List of Stories related in the Brhaddevata 132-133 V. List of Passages from the Brhaddevata cited in other Works 134-135 vi. Relation of the Brhaddevatfi to other Texts 136-154 yii. Index of Sanskrit Words and Names 155-198 \ INTRODUCTION 1. How I came to edit the Brhaddevata. AMONG the secondary works of Vedic literature, the Brhaddevata has -^^ always attracted a considerable share of interest on the part of Vedic scholars. When Roth, in 1846, published his treatise, Zur Litteratur und Geschichte des Weda, he knew the work only from the quotations occurring in the commentaries of Sadguru^isya and Sayana, which were then, of course, accessible in manuscript only. He remarks, however (p. 49), that copies would in all probability yet be found in India. Not long after this a MS. (b) of the Brhaddevata was actually acquired, along with the Chambers collection of Sanskrit MSS., by the Royal Library at Berlin. Adalbert Kuhn made it the basis of his account of the Brhaddevata published in the first volume (pp. 101-120) of Indische Studien (1850). Kuhn transcribed this MS., subsequently adding colla- tions from another MS. (h), which Haug procured at Poona in 1865, and which is now in the Royal Library at Munich. As he found these two MSS. insufficient for the purpose, Kuhn was unable to cai-ry out his intention of publishing an edition of the Brhaddevata. Meanwhile Max Miiller had obtained from India, in the sixties, three modem copies by the aid of Drs. Biihler and Bhau Daji. He, too, seems at one time to have contemplated editing the Brhaddevata ; for among his papers I found a transcript, in his own hand, coming down to the tenth Varga of the second Adhyaya^. But the inadequacy of his MS. material doubtless deterred him from proceeding any further. Later on, Dr. Thibaut, while resident in Oxford as Max Miiller's assistant, made extensive collations with a view to bringing out a critical edition of the Brhaddevata. But he, too, relinquished the project, being convinced that a text constituted from the MS. material at his disposal, would prove too conjectural in its character. * See Wickremasinghe's Catalogue of the I of the Boyal Asiatic Society, 190a, p. 641, no. Max IliUler Sanskrit MSS. in the Journal I 57. ; MITRA'S EDITION [introduction In 1886 Professor Lanman contemplated the work of editing the Brhad- devata ; but the difficulty of obtaining access to some of the indispensable MSS., together with the pressure of other work, obliged him to desist from the enterprise. He then asked me to undertake the task of editing the text critically, together with a translation and various appendices, for the Harvard Oriental Series. I gladly accepted the otfer, as I had already collated a number of passages in the work for my edition of Sadgurusisya^, as well as for an article published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*, and was, moreover, generally familiar with the auxiliary literature of the Rg-veda. Prof. Lanman accordingly handed over to me in 1897 his material, comprising Kuhn's collations and notes, together with a modem MS. (k) which Kuhn had obtained from India. 2. Sajendralala Mitra's edition. While Professor Lanman was still contemplating doing the work him- self, the late Dr. Rajendralala Mitra began, in 1889, to bring out, in the Bibliotheca Indica, his edition of the Brhaddevata, the last fasciculus of which appeared in 1892. Soon after I had set to work on the text, I mentioned to Prof. Buhler, in the course of conversation, the task on which I was engaged, and I well remember his asking whether I really thought it worth while to edit the work afresh. Indeed, a cursory examination of Mitra's edition, with its array of critical notes, might easily lead one to suppose that little remained for a second editor to do, at least in regard to the constitution of the text. Such a supposition would, however, be very erroneous. Mitra's edition is in reality entirely inadequate and altogether untrustworthy as a basis for further research. Its value I estimate at less than that of a single good MS. ; for it is full of defects from which such a MS. would be free. Besides a large number of misprints, it contains many impossible readings taken from incorrect MSS., omissions of lines, repetitions of lines, insertions of undoubtedly spurious lines, and lacunae. Thus, for example, in the second Adhyaya (p. 56) seven ^lokas (128-134) are repeated, without word or comment, in promiscuous order, from among the preceding thirty slokaa ; and in the fifth Adhyaya (p. 148) there is a lacuna of fifteen slokas ^ due to pure carelessness, for there is no sign of any such lacuna in any of the nine MSS. I have examined. Mitra's edition is, moreover, eclectic on no recog- ' Katyayana's Sai-vanukramanI, with ex- • Volume for 1894, pp. 11-29: 'Two Legends tracts from Sadguru^isya's commentary from the Brhaddevata.' Anecdota Oxoniensia, Oxford, 1886. ' Brhaddevata v. iia-136 in my text. Introduction] ACCOUNT OF THE MS. MATERIAL [xl nizable principle ; for the reading chosen is not only constantly opposed to the predominant evidence of the MSS., but is frequently by no means the best a priori. Based mainly on one MS. (or two which are practically identical), it shows haphazard selections and additions from MSS. of an- other recension. I have estimated that the edition contains one error of some kind on the average for every sloka, making a total of about 1 200. I may refer the reader to p. 85 as a specimen, where a passage of three slokas (93-95), as a comparison with my text (iii. 95-97) will show, contains twelve mistakes, and is consequently quite unintelligible. Since Mitra gives no information whatever about the MS. material he used, his critical notes are hardly of any value as far as his own edition is concerned. They have, nevertheless, proved quite useful to me in the light of the MSS. which have been at my disposal. Judging by his notes, I infer that Mitra employed seven MSS. in the constitution of his text. These MSS. were sold after his death. Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasada S'astri very kindly took much trouble in tracing them for me to their present owner; but my strenuous efforts to obtain access to them by purchase or loan have proved absolutely futile. 3. General accoimt of the MSS. and their relationship. For the purposes of my edition nine MSS. have been directly available. Eight of these fall into two well-defined groups, representing a shorter and a longer recension of the Brhaddevata. The former group I have designated A, the latter B (suggestive of the Berlin and Bodleian codices which belong to it). The ninth MS. belongs, as will be seen, in a sense to both groups.